Resumen de Factors affecting innovation in engineering design teams: An empirical investigation of student team perceptions
Sarah M. Asio, Jennifer A. Cross, Stephen Ekwaro-Osire
Innovation is a catalyst for economic growth, competitiveness, and sustainability worldwide. Knowledge has beenidentified as a key drivingforce for innovation usually resulting in intellectual property as a reward for creativity. Engineersof today are expected to possess abilities for teamwork, creativity, and innovation in order to meet the challenges andcomplexities of the 21st century. However, there is insufficient empirical evidence explaining the organizational, social andcognitive processes affecting innovation among engineering student design teams—the engineers of tomorrow. Theresearch addresses the question: What are the factors affecting Innovation in engineering student design teams? The studyadvances a framework for engineering student team innovation and uses survey data from a representative ABETaccredited four-year institution of higher learning involving 709 participants constituting 210 design teams from 40 designsections across nine academic departments at a college of engineering during an academic year. Validity and reliability ofthe survey instrument were obtained by using pre-existing scales, a pilot test, factor analyses, and scale reliability analysis.Other analyses involved aggregation analysis, ANOVA, correlation, and hierarchical linear modeling. A validated 59-itemsurvey scale was realized. Perceived engineering student team innovation is found to be significantly related to leadership,support for innovation, rewards, team size, communication, task orientation, effort, learning, cohesion, conflict andparticipative safety at the team level. Most study findings agree with general organization team innovation literature withexceptions of participative safety and support for innovation. Findings from the study have implications for theimprovement of engineering design curriculum and provide a framework for endeavors to harness skills for teamworkand innovation among engineering graduates through enhancing or regulating the determinants of innovation. A linearmodel for assessing team innovation among engineering students is elaborated in the study.
